Saturday, February 20, 2016

Today's poem by Susan Moorhead




I've read Susan Moorhead's blog for a long time, and when I learned she had a book of poetry coming out, I immediately bought it. It is a wonderful collection that you may buy at Finishing Line Press.

The one I'll share today is called:


I need the dog tonight

It's a night of worries fretting me like old bones
malformed by years of disease, the dull aching
pain flaring up when it threatens to rain. I wander

through the house, everyone asleep, checking
door knobs and window locks, but it's the thing
in me that can't get out after years of trying

to leave it behind. I walk the rooms turning off lights
I have just turned on, not restless but looking
for direction, just the old whirrings of a mind stirred

up with no ease in it, no place to curl up and rest.
I need the dog tonight. I find her, the furry snoring coil
at the foot of my daughter's bed, a bit of fluff and canine

neurosis that my sleeping child feels can guard her
from harm. The dog looks up, quizzical, waiting for my call,
but I see the peace of my daughter's outstretched arm,

the slack of her mouth, her long dark hair careless
on the white pillowcase, and I bid the dog goodnight.

Susan Moorhead

10 comments:

  1. How I empathize with these lines but thankfully have two of my own to snuggle with. And one of them has a few neuroses of his own and snaps at me if I shift in the night.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is very funny! I would love to be a fly on the wall and see it! Susan's poems are so accessible, so understandable to those of us reading them. Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.

      Delete
  2. I love this poem, she's new to me. I looked at her blog and will return. Thank you so much Nan. x

    ReplyDelete
  3. We really do need the comfort and the particular companionship of our dogs--or in this family--the special cats. I enjoyed the sense of late night putting the house to bed that is expressed in this poem.
    I appreciate your header photo and text--looking up the Thoreau quote led me to Robert Frost's 'The Woodpile.'For so many homes today a wood stove is thought up as 'back-up' heat. In our recently converted Amish farmhouse wood heat is the only heat--and thus the woodpile is very important.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for coming to leave a note. Susan writes wonderful poems. If you come back, I'd be interested in how many cords you burn a year.

      Delete
  4. I am beyond honored to have a poem on your blog ! Thank you, Nan. This is lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That is a great poem. And I love your banner it is so true, nothing my husband likes better than pottering around with the wood pile. Thank you for your comment.

    ReplyDelete

I'll answer your comments as soon as I possibly can. Please do come back if you've asked a question.
Also, you may comment on any post, no matter how old, and I will see it.